Ethiopia landslide kills over 20 people

Addis Ababa, Sunday

At least 24 people were killed and 28 others injured in a giant landslide of garbage inside a trash dump on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, a city spokesman told AFP on Sunday.

The landslide late Saturday levelled more than 30 makeshift homes of squatters living inside the Koshe landfill, said Dagmawit Moges, head of the city communications bureau.

He said many of the victims were squatters, who scavenged for valuables in the dump, while others live at the landfill because renting homes, largely built of mud and sticks, is relatively inexpensive there.

“We expect the number of victims to increase because the landslide covered a relatively large area,” he said. The Koshe site has for more than 40 years been one of the main garbage dumps for Addis Ababa, a rapidly growing city of some four million people.

About 150 people were at the site when the landslide occurred, resident Assefa Teklemahimanot said, adding that dozens were still missing. Addis Ababa Mayor Diriba Kuma said that 37 people had been rescued and were receiving medical treatment.

“My house was right inside there,” said Tebeju Asres, a resident pointing to where one of the excavators was digging in deep, black mud. “My mother and three of my sisters were there when the landslide happened.

Now I don’t know the fate of all of them.” The resumption of garbage dumping at the site in recent months likely caused the landslide, Assefa said.

The dumping had stopped in recent years, but it resumed after farmers in a nearby restive region where a new garbage landfill complex was being built blocked dumping in their area.

Smaller landslides have occurred at the Koshe landfill in the past two years, Assefa said. “In the long run, we will conduct a resettling programme to relocate people who live in and around the landfill,” the Addis Ababa mayor said.

Around 500 waste-pickers are believed to work at the landfill every day, sorting through the debris from the capital’s estimated 4 million residents.

City officials say close to 300,000 tons of waste are collected each year from the capital, most of it dumped at the landfill. Since 2010, city officials have warned that the landfill was running out of room and was being closed in by nearby housing and schools.

City officials in recent years have been trying to turn the garbage into a source of clean energy with a $120million investment. The Koshe waste-to-energy facility, which has been under construction since 2013, is expected to generate 50 megawatts of electricity upon completion.

Ethiopia, which has one of Africa’s fastest growing economies, is under a state of emergency imposed in October after several months of sometimes deadly protests demanding wider political freedoms. - AFP

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